Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Prometheus' (2012)

Seriously shocked that I never reviewed this movie. It's the kind of movie that misses its own point so badly that a critic can easily take a big wet bite out of it.

Here's the thing. If this was literally ANYTHING other than an Alien (1979) origin story, it would have been a great goddamn movie. The problem is that it IS an Alien origin story. And the origin story is DUMB. So let's go over what it did right, before I chew it to pieces.

Seriously though, I do recommend this movie, I just want you to pretend that it has absolutely nothing to do with the Alien franchise.

Let's start off with the acting, because the cast was magnificent. I mean, the movie is worth it for Noomi Repace, Michael Fassbender, and Edris Elba alone. But honestly, every single actor did a great job. The dialog was superb, the characters were really fleshed out and fascinating, there was even good chemistry, really, bravo.

The premise was even good. I'm not totally happy about the "Chariots of the Gods" origins, but I don't hate it. There is just a part of me that will always see the inherent racism of suggesting primitive African, Middle Eastern, and Native American, cultures couldn't make marvels without the help of aliens. But the idea of early alien contact is kinda neat if you don't go too deep into it. So I can live with it. However, a life creating, spontaniously evolving, virus as a form of terraforming other planets IS SUPER FUCKING COOL. Think about that shit for a second. You could say Earth was a lost colony that survived completely on its own without the help of the Aliens that created us. Then we discover THEM (or the ruins of their civilization) and have fascinating interactions with our creators and their technology. That, all by itself, would be a fantastic horror movie and it could have fuck-all to do with the Alien franchise.

But as a fucking fan of the franchise...

SPOILERS!!!

H. R. Giger would have slapped the writer who decided the "Navigator" design was just a space suit. I want to slap the writer who decided that the Navigator was just a space suit. The Navigator was clearly an organic entity grown into the machinery of the spaceship. That being WAS the spaceship. Retconning that wasn't just shameful and disrespectful of the original, it's fucking weak writing. The potential, in writing, for an alien species that biomechanically fits itself into its function, is fucking ENDLESS, and I will never forgive the writers for that. That's fucking COWARDLY writing.

What the flying fuck was with the giant face hugger? Like... what was the point of that? Just have the virus produce the first actual face hugger. It could even be a slightly primitive version. Hell, you could use one of the earlier drafts from H. R. Giger. It would have been a nice throwback. A giant squid face hugger was just... dumb.

Now, I'm gonna defend what Cinema Sins calls "The Prometheus School of Running Away From Things," because that's a legitimate psychological reaction that scared people will actually have. You would think a frightened person would see a danger with a limited birth coming at them and strafe it. However, as we learned from WWI and WWII, the actual tenancy of the frightened victim is to run directly away from the thing they could more safely sidestep. It's called Tank Shock. The monkey in your brain tells you to run away. It doesn't tell you which direction to run, so you just instinctively default to 'run directly away.' So, that scene gets a pass from me regardless of how dumb it would seem.

You know what was fucking BADASS though? Noomi Repace getting a fucking C-Section from some busted-ass old machine that didn't know it was giving a C-Section. That shit was fucking BRUTAL! Probably one of the best horror scenes in the industry EVER!

So pretend this movie has absolutely nothing to do with Alien (1979) and you may actually enjoy it. However, if you're a fan of the franchise, like me, you're gonna have a bad time. Enjoy...